it's beginning to look a lot like....

Valentine's Day around here.  I picked up these adorable place mats that have a little felt pocket on them for silverware, a napkin, or even a little love note!  We used them last night and the kids loved it.

 

I also changed out our hot cocoa station to look a little bit more like Valentine's day too.

  

Do you decorate for every holiday?  I had a friend comment on our house at Halloween and how she never thought to decorate for anything besides Christmas.  I thought it was funny since I seem to decorate for each and every holiday!!!

deck on a dime

I have been wondering what to do with our deck for a long time.  There are two parts to the deck an upper level and a lower level.  When we bought the house there was a hot tub in the upper level.  We never used it and then it broke so we decided to get rid of it.  We bought the table and chairs and grill when we were first married over eight years ago, but I never really bought anything more beyond that.  This summer I decided to jazz it up.  I found some cute galvanized lanterns and planters at Ikea.  We took a rug that used to be in our living room and moved it outside and bought some new cushions and an umbrella.  I love the new space.

The table was decorated for my husbands birthday with some colorful napkins that I got to match the new cushions.  I was approached by a company called the tablecloth factory.  Again I was offered a $25 store credit to review one of their products.  I decided to use it for napkins.  I ordered what they labeled as linen napkins.  When I got them I thought they felt more like polyester, but I love all of the different colors that they had to choose from and the prices really can't be beat!  I think I was able to get 40 napkins just using the $25 credit.  And they seem to have sales all the time.  Definitely something to check out if you need new table linens or are having a party any time soon.




Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I received a $25 store credit for the purposes of this review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own

heart of the home

For my last Valentine post I wanted to share some pictures of the decorations around the house.  This is actually more for my sake so that I can remember what I did for next year!  Hope that you enjoy it too!

baby bunting

I can't believe my baby is going to be one next week!  The year has just flown by.  I am trying to pull together a very small birthday with some simple and sweet homemade details.  I'm doing a winter "one"derland party with red and blue accent colors.   I had all of the supplies at home that I needed to make this petite bunting, red/white gingham fabric, tiny clothespins, and twine. Since I'm not a sewer I decided to just clip the fabric to the twine instead. It was so easy and I love how it looks.  I am definitely going to keep it up for Valentine's day and maybe even longer than that!  Stay tuned for more details over the next few weeks.

holiday cards

I love going to the mailbox this time of year.  It is so fun to get Christmas cards from family and friends near and far.  It is always hard to find a place to display them all. Not any more! I bought some shutters at an antique store years ago.  There were two that were attached and I used them on the floor as a mini screen.  Recently they broke apart and we decided to hang them on the wall in our red living room.  There is one on either side of the room, right next to the windows.  I thought they would be great for displaying books or magazines and cards during the holidays.  Since some of the cards are flat I glued some red shiny paper to some clothespins and they hold the cards in place and look festive too.

deck the dolls

Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon with my daughter decorating her doll's house.  We made mini wreaths, added doll sized Christmas trees and candy canes and even wrote a tiny letter to Santa. I remembered I had some gingerbread cookie stickers so we put them on a small piece of aluminum foil to look like cookies baking in the kitchen.  We both had so much fun!

getting ready

Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week!  I am cleaning out the fridge, making my grocery list and decorating the dining room for our feast.  I put some bittersweet in an over sized vase on my new console and some autumn colored chocolate candies (which are almost gone) in a jar.  On the chalkboard I wrote a fitting quote.  Hope you are having fun getting ready for the big day and that you all have a wonderful weekend!

october

Can you believe that tomorrow is the first day of October?  I don't know where September went.  Anyway, I thought I would pull out my Halloween decorations and here is what I did yesterday.  I put some candy corn garland in the kitchen, a "boo" sign in the bathroom, a teddy bear all dressed up  in his costume and some red mums on the mantle in the living room. (Here are some more decorations in my dining room from last year). Now if only the weather would cooperate and start acting like fall.  Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

pretty in pink

Yesterday was my mom's birthday.  She is so sweet and thoughtful and does so much for me and so I wanted to make her birthday extra special.  However, I am finding it a little more challenging to get out of the house to run errands with three small children!  So all of the ideas I originally had went out the window and I was left to improvise with things I had around the house like candles, napkin rings, and ribbon.  I was able to get her some plants (you can read about another gift idea using impatiens here) and a funny little metal sign that I thought was a perfect sentiment sitting in a pot of impatiens!  Although I wasn't able to get helium filled balloons I blew some up that I had leftover from my daughters party and tossed them on the floor.  I added some pink ribbons to an Eiffel Tower and wrote a message on the chalkboard.  It was a lovely evening celebrating a lovely woman.

play room

We have been working on this project for a few months.  This was a room on the first floor that was essentially underused and I imagined it would be a perfect place to store all of the children's toys and to hang their coats.  Since we live in an old house there isn't a lot of closet space.  We only have one small coat closet on the entire first floor so I keep having to find creative ways to store all of our things!  We emptied the room first, painted it a neutral color, and organized all of the toys into categories. When we put them back in to the space we used a designated shelf or bin for each category as you can see from the picture of the bookcase above. For example, one shelf has games another trucks.  This makes it easy to clean up since everything now has a specific place.  I moved the red frames from my office in there as well to display the children's art work.  We put a train table in the corner that besides providing endless entertainment was used as a table to eat dinner on when we had some friends over this past weekend.  I'm very happy with the results and, besides finding some decorative things to hang on the walls, it's finished!

deck the halls (and door)

(photo courtesy of Pier 1)

I bought this wreath for our front door back in Sept. I wanted something autumnal but thought that this was more versatile than a leaf wreath that I was originally planning on buying. For Christmas this year I put a larger evergreen wreath behind it and added some festive ribbon. If I had gone with the leaf wreath I would have had to take it down for the holidays. Since the berry wreath was fairly expensive I am happy that I can use it a little longer. If you are interested in purchasing the berry wreath it is on sale right now! Just click on the link above.

doll's house

My daughter got this play tent for Christmas last year. I thought it would be fun to make it into a little house for her dolls. We put the tent in her bedroom and moved all of her doll furniture inside. I love when I can find everyday things in miniature sizes and was delighted to find a doll sized Adirondack chair and laundry basket. I even found the perfect color (and size) rug to go inside too. My daughter loves taking care of her baby dolls in their very own house.

what are we doing today?

This is one of those projects that came to me in the middle of the night when I was soothing my daughter as a baby. I realized that there were 5 different sections on her closet door that I could use as a weekly calendar. I printed out the days of the week in pink and green and laminated them so that they would last longer. I attached scrapbook paper to some thin cork board that I bought in a roll and then hung it on the door. I use stickers and pictures to let my daughter know what she will be doing during the week and attach invitations to parties as well. It's a fun way for my daughter to learn the days of the week and keep track of events for her week.